Kenya Stockholm Blog

Diplomat Jenipher Awuor Recalled

Reports reaching KSB indicate that the cocky diplomat Jenipher Awuor at the Kenyan Embassy in Stockholm has been recalled. Although efforts to confirm the news with Kenya’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs were fruitless, an independent report mailed to KSB indicated that Ms Awuor was recalled together with the Kenyan Ambassador to King James Court, London.

The recall will no doubt bring down pressure at the Embassy especially among lower cadre employees because Ms Awuor has been associated with some of the most draconian methods of leadership at the Embassy.

Awuor (L) carrying Purity's hand bag

On the other hand, the departure of Awuor will leave Ambassador Purity Muhindi lonely because on many occasions, she has been banking on Awuor as a morale booster during her Conference and meeting excursions within Stockholm’s diplomatic community.

Because of the working chemistry between the two top female diplomats at the Embassy, serious policy decisions have largely been viewed as the product of the Ambassador and Awuor’s thinking.

When the Ambassador transferred the celebration of Jamhuri day to Oslo last year, observers were quick to point out that Awuor must have been involved in the decision making because she is known to hate Kenyans to the bone.

According to sources, the transfer of the Jamhuri celebrations to Oslo was part of “punishing” Kenyans in Stockholm for having boycotted last year’s Madaraka day celebrations that was called at the Ambassador’s residence.

Another decision by the Ambassador to organize a “coffee meeting” with Kenyans in Denmark last year was also seen to have had Awuor’s input whose attitude all along has been that the Embassy should forget about Kenyans in Stockholm because they are “forever ungrateful”.

The Embassy has never organized a “meet Wakenya” beat in Stockholm and when the Ambassador committed tax payer’s money last year to try and impress Kenyans in Denmark with tea and coffee, critics were quick to point out that Purity had forgotten that charity begins at home.

With her departure, a cross section of Kenyans in Stockholm are likely to toss because Awuor is also seen as “bad influence” on the Ambassador. Some Kenyans believe that she is responsible for the horns Purity grew after she came to Stockholm because as the Deputy Ambassador who had a wider experience in Kenya Stockholm prior to Purity’s arrival to take over from former Ambassador Kinyanjui, it was Awuor’s responsibility to take Purity through the paces of Kenya Stockholm and to advice her correctly on how to handle the Kenya-Stockholm crowd.

Good Ridance

Instead, Awuor embarked on a program to isolate Purity from Kenyans with a lot of negative propaganda which later, is reported to have convinced Purity that Kenyans here are a bunch of alcoholics who must be avoided at all costs.

Awuor became so close to Purity that at the time of her recall, she had become Purity’s hand-bag carrier on her way to different functions across Stockholm instead of remaining in the office to take charge when the Ambassador is away.

When evidence was published at KSB about Awuor’s hand-bag carrying responsibility as Purity strolled beside her “hands free”, Kenyans were shocked. It is this kind of degeneration that might have attracted the attention of the Foreign Office prompting her recall.

As Kenyans prepare for a new Deputy Ambassador, the big question is when Purity will go. In the meantime, the departure of Awuor is “good riddance” and Kenyans here can only hope that another mistake will not be done by the bosses in Nairobi to bring yet another Awuor to perpetuate a culture of opacity and intransigence between the Embassy and Kenyans in Stockholm.

At KSB, we hope that her departure is the beginning of Purity’s exit because she is too “contaminated with the Awuor cancer” to bring about meaningful reform at the Embassy. Kenyans need an Embassy they can communicate with, an ambition that has repeatedly been frustrated by the two lady bosses at the Embassy.

On the whole, it has been a bad show of girl power at the Embassy. Awuor leaves behind a legacy of contempt that makes her recall an event that should have taken place long time ago. At KSB, we hope that she will never be given another diplomatic posting because her personal history at the Embassy should not be allowed to repeat itself at any Kenyan embassy under any circumstance.

Her posting at the Embassy was probably one of the biggest tragedies to have struck the Embassy in recent time because the havoc she has created in terms of Public Relations is so devastating that some Kenyans stopped viewing the Embassy as a Kenya government institution because the leadership behaved more as though they were running a family business empire, not an extension of State House in Stockholm.

Okoth Osewe

May 21, 2009 - Posted by makozewe | News & Analysis